Keeping Time
by Lena Carr
Summary: "Every day is like the others. Until it isn't." Daryl/Caryl, T for language, A/N at the end. Set post S5E8.


**A/N:** At the end.

* * *

The camp was still and quiet when Carol woke. By the height of the last quarter moon, peeking through the trees on the downhill side of the campsite, it was after midnight, but not by much. She lay in the blankets listening to Daryl breath next to her, and to Eugene's snores across the camp, and to Abraham and Rosita quietly giggling together, and the comforting tap of one alarm can against another, as the slight breeze tugged at the warning wire.

_Really shouldn't have finished that last half-canteen_, she thought, carefully peeling herself away from Daryl. She'd known it would mean getting up to pee in the middle of the night, but the hill stream water had been clean and clear, and even after boiling the water tasted better than anything they'd had for a week. She shivered when the cool air hit her shoulders, skin prickling as she hurriedly slipped back into her sweater and trousers. Slinging her belt with her knife and revolver over one shoulder, she made her way to the non-stream side of the camp, and the designated latrine bush there.

She was half way back when a gasping moan came at her feet, startling her into stumbling off the trace. Her toes tangled on a random stick and sent Carol to her knees even as she jerked her knife free. The blood suddenly thundering in her ears was deafening. The noise came from a lump huddled at the foot of a cedar tree, making noises that raised the hair on the back of Carol's neck. As Carol scrambled back, the lumpy figure stirred, sniffed, and then dragged a wrist across its face. "S-s-s-sorry."

It was Tara. Carol felt the tension slide away, leaving her trembling. With a shaking hand, she sheathed the knife. "Tara, what's wrong?" The younger woman didn't answer. "No, really, Tara, tell me." Carol edged closer, holding out a hand. Tara snuffled again, shaking her head. "Honey, please." She thought of Bob, and what Tyreese had told her of the way the man had hidden his wound. Of how Jim had done the same. Of Mika's father. Her gut clenched. _No, I don't want to do this again…_

Tara let out another broken sob, then raised tear-silvered eyes to meet Carol's before lunging into her arms.

It took Carol most of an hour to let Tara cry herself out, get another cup of water heated, make her drink and wipe her face, and persuade the younger woman to crawl back in her bedroll, alone. Assuring Tara constantly that she wasn't unhappy with her, that Tara hadn't terrified the life out of her, that Carol wasn't mad…

Aware, all the while, that three-quarters of the camp lay within earshot, that darkness was no privacy in their lives, and that none of their sorry blanket-hugging asses were going to come rescue her from what Tyreese had called _great-auntie duties_.

She'd about flung a pot of water at Tyreese for that. Because _who the hell_ had died and appointed _Carol _the go-to girl for everyone's emotional distress.

_Oh, right, that was Hershel_.

Daryl had at least crawled out of bed and stopped by the cedar, on his way to the latrine pit. Carol had shaken her head and sent him on his way. It wasn't something Daryl needed to hear, not where Carol couldn't put her attention on him. Daryl hadn't lingered, but he must have crossed the camp to find Glenn on nightwatch. The young man had picked his way over and sat rubbing Tara's back for a while, before quietly taking his leave and going back to the watch rock.

Eventually, though, Tara had run out of tears, and started breathing regularly, and made noises about how silly she felt, and Carol had somewhat ruthlessly bundled Tara back to bed.

When Carol got back to her blankets, Daryl was still awake.

"What's all that?" He asked, sitting up as she crouched down and undid the straps on her boots.

Carol shook her head. "Just, life these days, anymore."

Daryl narrowed his eyes at her, poked a finger at the wet spot on her shoulder. The outer shirt had been worse. "Not every day you git rained on, not like that. You got something' goin' on w' her?"

She gave him a look. The moon was higher now, and shining full on him, washing away the hollows in his cheeks, making his hair smooth ebony instead of greasy and tangled. "Yes, dear, I've decided to throw you over for Tara." Then, when his face suddenly went stiff and hard, she sighed. "Daryl –"

He shook his head, rubbed his face back into something more approachable. "No, sorry." He took another breath, shifted over to make room in the blankets. Carol settled in beside him and drew his arm around her. Daryl twisted over, shaping his body around hers and pulling the blankets close before lowering his head to drop a kiss to the side of her neck and let his breath stir her hair. A moment of matching his breathing to hers, and he cleared his throat.

"Lemme try that again?"

She turned her head, not quite able to meet his eyes in the darkness, and made an inquiring noise. "Hmmm?"

"Ummm. You an'Tara. Ifn that's what you want. I'm good with it…" He let out one gusting sigh, drew in another, and finished with "Just so's I git to watch."

Shocked, Carol jerked all the way around, flipping the blankets back, just as Daryl broke out in raspy, half-voiced snickers. She elbowed him in the ribs, hard, before flopping back on her side with a huff. "Brat. Just for that, I'm going to set up a threesome with Rosita and not invite you."

Another huff of breath gusted warm over her skin as he settled back against her. She wiggled firmly back up against him – not looking for sex, they'd already had a round and a half of that, earlier in the night – but just to let him know he was forgiven. He took it in the spirit she intended, resettling the blankets, slipping an arm around her waist to hug her closer to him and letting her re-arrange his elbow until her head was pillowed on his bicep.

"Za'right?" He asked, after a bit, when she still hadn't fallen asleep.

"No. You're boney. You need to eat more."

He didn't respond to that as she thought he might, as Ed would have, in the early days of their marriage, with a grab at her breasts, a rock of his hips against hers and a whispered promise to _show you __**bone**__, woman._ The couples in the fairy tales had it easy, and the sci-fi romances with the telepathy and soul-bonds and _one-true-loves_. Prince Charming always knew what Sleeping Beauty wanted, and she never had to guess what the fool man was thinking.

Or vice-versa.

"How come Rosita? Why not Maggie?"

_For instance, exhibit A_.

Carol let out a breath, played the question back through her mind a couple times, and asked, "Serious or making jokes?" They had gotten to the point where she could ask, most of the time, without Daryl withdrawing in a huff. And where Daryl _would_ ask, half the time, or nearly so, if he didn't know what to make of what ever words she'd used.

They had come halfway across the universe to find each other. She'd thought they would always understand each other – at least, until they had started talking to each other, and realized they'd been confusing each other as often as not. They'd scuffed each other, plenty, burnishing their love into a glowing gem.

Now, Daryl smiled against her neck. "Sev'ty five."

Mostly serious, then. If he'd said, "Forty," because Daryl really didn't make jokes that well, and rarely dropped below fifty with anything he said, she'd have quipped something about how Daryl liked Rosita's looks better, being a boob man rather than butt-oriented. And that would have led to a laugh, and a rough grope under her sleep shirt, and the count for the night would have gone above three, easy.

Instead, she ran her hand up Daryl's arm and said quietly. "She's still upset that Glenn forgot their seven month anniversary." When Daryl groaned something profane and unimpressed, Carol squeezed his arm. "You were the one who put us all back on the calendar. And _Glenn_ was the one who made a big deal out of it, after he spent their six-month in quarantine. He told Maggie he wanted to do something special." She rubbed her cheek against his arm. "It's silly, but…all we have is memories. Not people, just markers for memories. If we leave them behind, if we –" her breath caught. Daryl's arm tightened around her. _Not losing you again_.

He moved his arm then, slid his hand up her body until he had caught her wrist and tangled his hand in her fingers, touched his thumb to her knuckles, one after another.

"You okay?"

Carol nodded, gripped his hand tighter, hugged it to her chest. "It was Tara's niece's birthday, five days ago. She forgot." Daryl grunted, hummed a soft agreement. "She was upset."

They lay like that for a long time, Daryl's breath – still waking-shallow, waking-fast – steady on her neck, his thumb playing jackstones across her hand. Finally, she said, "Sophia's birthday, that was when I was lost in the Tombs. She would have been thirteen." She sighed, pushing out the sorrow in her gut, the old pain coated around her heart. "Ryan Samuels told me when Mika's birthday was, and Lizzie's. I wrote the dates down, in the record book at the prison, when they first came in. I was going to go back, and look, so I could remember. I thought about it, when I went with Rick on that last run." She swallowed, lifted her hand, still linked with Daryl's, to wipe at her face.

He let her draw a thumb over both her eyes, wringing away the moisture. Then he surprised her again, taking control when she would have let their hands fall, and traced her eyebrows, the line of her nose, down over her lip and along her jaw to her ear, brought her hand to his so he could brush his lips over it. Then he let gravity take over again, until she was holding his hand over her heart.

He had put down the walker that had been his brother, on Glenn and Maggie's wedding day. She would do neither of them any good to speak of it now.

And then, a third time since midnight, he shocked her.

"Carol. Been a year, you know." His voice was low, rumbling on the lowest registers, so quiet she could scarcely swear to have heard it. "You an' me." He swallowed, the motion of his throat like sandpaper on her skin. "You could think on that."

She blinked, shook her head. "Daryl, I –" They were – they were _new_. Her body still wasn't accustomed to his weight, she still jerked when his hands slid between her legs. He wouldn't kiss her in front of the others, and yet could barely let her out of his sight, even in daylight. Less than a month now, since the last three quarter moon, that they had been…sleeping together. Having sex. Fucking. _Making love?_ Whatever it was, it was_ new_. Nothing like a year.

"Saaa, saaaa," he whispered in her ear, pushing against her confusion, her doubt. "Hun'ert, woman, absolute. You listen t' me." He hugged her close, one armed. "You remember, last winter, that house by the lake, w' th' ugly couch? There was a whole case a' canned green beans and we 'bout made ourselves sick on 'em."

And now she did, she did remember. A yellow house, blue trim, tall fence, and enough space to park the vehicles. They'd set up a grill on the back porch, overlooking the water, heated a single can of spaghettios for seasoning and stuffed themselves on cold green beans. Lori – Lori had felt Judith move, for the first time, that night.

"You sat up half the night, talkin' to Lori, talkin' about Sophia, about Carl, telling her it was going to be alright. Sayin' all sorts of crazy wise shit, like you're an old grannie that'd seen it all."

Tears sparked in Carol's eyes. She sniffed, burrowed herself further into his arms.

"You got Lori to go to bed, finally, and you lay awake on that ugly couch with all the damn stupid flowers. You were thinkin' 'bout Sophia, weren't you?" She nodded, unable to make the words come out, nodded again, hard so he could feel it, and held his hand close to her. "And then, like just now, thirteen moons ago, after midnight, the moon come up, and made the trees and the lake beautiful, and I couldn't stand you not seein' it, and you weren't sleepin' anyway, so…"

"You came and got me," she choked out, when he let the silence go on. "Made me get up off of that warm couch, and find my shoes, and fed me some _bullshit_ story about needing to watch the lake while you checked the drive." She half-laughed, half-sobbed. "I couldn't tell if you were lying on purpose, or just being mean, because I'd almost dumped over Merle's bike that morning."

Now it was his turn to let out a snort of laughter. "Done forgot that. You looked so surprised, like you hadn't known it would move like that. An' then you were so mad, when I yelled." He shifted behind her, pressed a kiss on her temple, lifted their hands to brush her cheek. "That was when I knew."

She asked, because she knew she could, and she wanted to be sure. "Knew what?"

A low chuckle that she as much felt as heard, a rumble deep in his chest. "You was my girl." Again his thumb played over her hand. "You know that, right? Now?" She nodded, kissed the back of his hands. "Good. So don't you forget to think on that, when you're doing all your rememberin'."

She nodded again, and wiped at her face, and then pulled her hand free to reach up and touch his chin, run her nails through his miserable scraggly excuse of a beard. He let her trace his mouth with her fingers, nipping at them before capturing her hand again. He pressed a kiss into her palm, then released it to tug the blanket around their shoulders.

"You sleep, now. You gotta set a good example, don't go embarrassing me in fronta Glenn and Abraham, tomorrow on the road."

She snorted. "You'd just tell them you kept me up all night, braggart."

"Staahp." He hugged her closer. "Sleep."

She did.

* * *

_End_

* * *

A/N: Set post S5E8. Caryl, Team Group. Rated T for Dixon language. For the Nine Lives Caryl Archive Anniversary Challenge.

"Thirteen moons" is not exactly a typo – lunar cycles are 29 ½ days, for 12.4 cycles a year. Daryl is rounding.


End file.
